Track was too cold to judge new car – Hamilton

[smr2018test]

Lewis Hamilton says conditions were too cold on the first day of testing to draw any conclusions about Mercedes’ new F1 car.

“We didn’t get the chance to complete many laps today owing to the bad weather,” said Hamilton, who did 25 laps in the car.

“The track was very cold in the afternoon, meaning it was tough to get any sort of heat into the tyres. The tyres weren’t really working in these temperatures, so I could not get a real feel for them.”

“I didn’t really get the chance to push in the car and go up to top speeds as the conditions were so bad. It’s hard for me to say a whole lot about the car because I did not drive it for a long time, but the initial feeling is good.”

Valtteri Bottas drove the car in the morning when conditions were slightly better but also said his programme was frustrated by low temperatures.

“Neither the cars nor the tyres are made to be driven in 5C,” he said. “We ran two sets of medium tyres. In these conditions it was difficult to get enough heat into them to get them working properly. That’s been the main challenge of the day, but that’s the same for everyone. The amount of testing we can do is limited so we have to make the most of it.”

2018 F1 season

• McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
• ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
• Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
• McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
• Ricciardo: Baku “s***show” was Red Bull’s fault